Renowned hacker George Hotz built this autonomous driving system using readily-available components

George Hotz may not be a name you're familiar with but in the modding community, he's practically a living legend. Known online as "Geohot," he became the first person to hack Apple's original iPhone at the ripe age of 17 and later reverse-engineered the PlayStation 3 (Sony wasn't thrilled about that).

These days, he's turned his attention to much bigger endeavors - like building his own autonomous driving system.

Hotz recently invited Bloomberg to check out his creation, one that he's been developing in secret. He's taken a standard-issue 2016 Acura ILX sedan and outfitted it with an array of sensors, cameras, computers, GPS units and more - all of which connect to the car's main computer systems. In total, he's spent just $50,000 on the project - $30,000 of which was for the car itself.

Two major breakthroughs are said to make the tinkerer's project possible: the continued rise in computer processing power and advances in deep learning.

Bloomberg writer Ashlee Vance checked back in with Hotz a few more times after their initial meeting. Each time, the self-driving system performed much better than it previously had. Remarkably enough, Hotz claims his software consists of just 2,000 lines of codes compared to the hundreds of thousands of lines used in other autonomous driving vehicles.

Hotz aims to have a world-class autonomous driving system ready in just five months that he will present to Tesla CEO Elon Musk. It's pretty incredible how advanced his system already is, a true testament to the brilliance of a young man with a very bright future ahead.